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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651290">Wrecked</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyri/pseuds/Lyri'>Lyri</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angel's inner thoughts, F/M, Gen, Season 3, Self-Loathing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:08:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>791</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651290</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyri/pseuds/Lyri</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel has thoughts about living in the mansion.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Angel/Buffy Summers, if you squint</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Wrecked</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My second attempt at a BtVS fic. This one's a little darker. Unbeta'd because I have no friends, lol.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Angel stands in the middle of the mansion and looks around.</p><p>He still feels weird, off. Like there's bugs under his skin and he supposes that it's going to take some time to get used to the fact that he's no longer in a hell dimension fighting for his life every second of the never ending day.</p><p>He also has to get used to the fact that he has a soul again. It was bad enough the first time around, when he was alone. Now he has people – he has <em>Buffy</em> – all of whom bore witness to all the terrible things he did.</p><p>It's awkward as hell, but the only thing he can really think about, standing here in the middle of this beautiful building, is that he tortured Giles right over there behind that wall. And he dragged a girl here by her hair and did awful things to her in that little alcove next to the fireplace while Drusilla watched – hungry for more than blood.</p><p>Everywhere he looks, Angel spots places that bring back horrifying, <em>terrifying,</em> memories of the evil things he's done in this huge excuse for a house.</p><p>But he also can't leave. The house is ancient – not as old as Angel, himself, obviously – and the monstrosities committed within these walls by Angelus, Drusilla and Spike probably weren't the only evil deeds done here. And Angel can't stomach the idea of anyone else – <em>anyone</em> else – living here, breathing in that corrupt energy that Angel helped grow.</p><p>He wants to take a wrecking ball to it. He wants to raze it to the ground and salt the earth so that nothing ever grows here again.</p><p>But he can't, because the mansion is an historic building, protected by laws or ordinances or <em>something</em>, so tearing it down isn't an option for him.</p><p>So instead, he decides to take it out on the inside.</p><p>First, he heads outside to the courtyard and tears out the fake roses Spike had one of his lackeys 'plant' for Drusilla because she threw a tantrum when the real ones wouldn't grow fast enough. Then he goes for the trellis they were attached to, ripping them off the walls. His rams his feet and fists into the fountain until it's a gurgling, bubbling mess. He doesn't stop until the courtyard is completely unrecognizable, until he's bloody and muddy disaster, and even then, all he does is head inside, towards the area where Acathla stood and starts ripping up the tile until he can see dirt.</p><p>He doesn't stop for days, doesn't remember sleeping, eating, even <em>thinking.</em> All the walls are gone, he replaces the floor with simple concrete, hangs heavy drapes where the doors should be, then goes one step further and hangs them along the walls in some rooms as well, like he remember they did with castles back home. It's not exactly as cold in California as it was in Ireland back in his youth, but it makes him feel secure and grounded.</p><p>Eventually, after he's finished everything, when he takes a step back and finally remembers how to think clearly, he still wants to leave.</p><p>His apartment is still where he left it, obviously. He paid for it outright when he first arrived in Sunnydale, the day before Buffy arrived herself.</p><p>But that place has memories now, too. It's the place he and Buffy gave themselves to each other, where he experienced the best moment of his life.</p><p>And it's also the place where his life became an unliving nightmare. Where <em>he</em> became an unliving nightmare and he turned Buffy's life into even more of a horror movie than it was before.</p><p>He tried to go back there, when his mind became his own again, but his stomach started to roll as soon as he opened the door.</p><p>The bed was still unmade, the sheets still rumbled from their love making. Buffy's scent still inexplicably hung in the air, even after so many months, and it it was all he could do to keep himself together as he turned and ran out of there.</p><p>He hasn't been back since.</p><p>He doesn't want to be here, either. In this mausoleum. But the idea of anyone else living here fills him with such dread that he can barely stand it.</p><p>So he stays, and he broods, and he shakes violently any time Buffy or any of her friends step foot over the threshold, in case any of that evil he put into these walls seeps into them, makes them dark and corrupts them from the inside out.</p><p>His life is a wrecking ball that destroyed and devastated and <em>ended</em> so many lives.</p><p>He'll be damned – again – if he lets his building claim any more.</p>
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